Customer Reviews

Militia

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

First of all let me say that I am a Dean Cain fan, I watched this movie based on the fact that he was in it. That turned out to be a big mistake. The plot has holes in it that you could Drive a Mack truck through, the action sequences were a joke (I'm sure the AFT enters a hostile situation single file like ducks in a row), and I don't think the writers know what the words character development mean. I was so upset I was yelling at the television, but at the same time I couldn't turn it off. It was like a train wreck, you have to look.
If you're looking for an action movie, run. If you're looking for a Dean Cain fix get Best Men, Broken Hearts Club, or No Alibi; otherwise you'll lose 2 hours of your life you'll never get back.

MILITIA (2000)
directed by Jim Wynorski
approx. 90 minutes

This is a pretty silly look at the militia movement from the perspective of an "undercover" Federal sniper.

Former TV Superman Dean Cain attempts to infiltrate a big bad militia with the help of a anti-government dissident William Fain (played by Frederic Forrest*) who wants whats best for his family. 'FLASHDANCE' star Jennifer Beals is in for the ride to help Mr. Sniper monitor the group. Stacey Keach plays a G.Gordon Liddy type radio personality who it turns out is "more than a sympathizer". Perhaps the only worthwhile segments of this movie are the dialogue between the agent and Fain, debating the government's hamfisted handling of past incidents. Cain's character is meant to show the "human" side of the Federals who wants to minimize damage but still believes in the occasional forced disarmament.

There are no big surprises here: the militia are mostly shown to be semi-literate, violent goons and the Federals, while perhaps overly assertive, are right to use deadly force against the citizenry. It is also true that some of the footage is lifted directly from other well known movies, including 'DELTA FORCE II' and 'T2: JUDGEMENT DAY'. What's strange about this movie is that it was one of director Jim Wynorski's few attempts to produce a movie with social content. He is better known for low grade sexuality movies such as 'THE BARE WENCH PROJECT' and 'BUSTY COPS'.

The "slant" of this movie will not surprise anyone familiar with the real tragedies it exploits and the media's treatment of 2nd Amendment issues.

*-The casting of Frederic Forrest as Fain may be to reference to his extremist Army surplus store owner character in 'FALLING DOWN'.

It's too obvious when they switch from pre-recorded footage from other sources to their own lame scenes. The plot completely lacks creativity (uh oh, bad guys have missiles, hero has to go stop them from launching). I don't mind action movies that use a recycled plot of they do a good job of it, but this movie has none of its own style, just a low-budget movie you would expect to be a cable network original or something like that.

The only thing they added to a generic script was a brief rant by Dean Cain about how the milita nuts are afraid of the ATF (losely quoted) "breaking into their house and taking their guns." Newsflash Mr. Cain: that's EXACTLY what the ATF does, unless maybe they break in to take your alcohol or tobacco. If he wanted to make an anti-militia statement, doing it from the mouth of an ATF agent isn't the most convincing method.

I'll have to disagree with the other reviewer. I think this only proves that Dean Cain can act. As a fan of Mr. Cain since his Superman days, I enjoyed seeing something different from him. And knowing what some of his other projects coming up are, it shows how versatile an actor he really is. All in all, Dean Cain is more than just a pretty face.

Fifteen minutes hadn't passed during this movie before I stopped watching. Aside from being one of those movies you know they write the scripts for in five minutes, I was shocked to find scenes STOLEN directly from Terminator 2, with simply a change of characters and music. It doesn't matter if they were given permission to or not, such a lack of effort and creativity deserves no merit. Do not even watch.

Without question, the best bad movie I've ever seen! Every time I thought about watching something else, it got engrossingly worse. I found myself feeling almost morbidly voyueristic as I watched the movie destroy itself in the slow, and painful, plot avalanche that was it's ending, to which I was superglued.

First of all let me say that I am a huge Dean Cain fan, so I watched this movie based on the fact that he was in it. That turned out to be a mistake. The plot had holes you could drive a Mack truck through, the action sequences were a joke (I'm sure the ATF enters hostile situations single file like ducks in a row), and I don't think the writers know what the words character development mean. I was so upset I was actually yelling at the television, but at the same time I couldn't turn it off. It was like a train wreck, you have to look. If you're looking for a good action movie, run. If you're looking for a Dean Cain fix, like I was, get Best Men, Broken Hearts Club, or No Alibi; otherwise you'll lose two hours of your life you'll never get back.

This was a bad movie, the acting was horrible, the dialogue was laughable, and some of the action sequences were ridiculous! Especially that one scene where they blantantly "borrow" scenes from Terminator 2. It's insane they use scenes straight from the movie, from when they tried to break into Cyberdyne systems. And they didn't even change that name they kept it, Cyberdyne systems. It was a very sad thing to see.

I really had low expectations for this movie, so when I found myself actually being surprised about some of the twists in the plot, I figured Not Bad. Being a fan of mysteries, it was interesting the number of suspenseful turns this plot took. Some interesting alliances, and non-alliances, as people are working together or not. It seems all the characters are tense with each other over something. The plot isn't likely to take place today, post-Oklahoma City bombing, but the focus on the militia movement vs. military and goverment forces, and political arguments to boot, can have an open-minded person really thinking after-the-fact. Seeing these characters on-screen portraying their points-of-view, no matter what your beliefs, maybe the bad guys aren't such bad guys after all. As far as performances go, uniformly good, especially with quick intercuts and a fast-moving plot. An added plus is the obligatory hero-heroine romance is missing, though that's mainly because the characters are too busy working. The wardrobe seems off the rack rather than Georgio Armani, which may be less sophisticated but more true-to-life for guys and gals working on a salary. When the hero - an ATF agent - goes into his undercover op assignment, he even sports an unshaven look and trades steely glances and dialogue with a former militiaman - a man he once shot who is now functioning as his intro into the civilian army he is investigating. What's a definite problem is the DVD suffers from being full-screen instead of letterbox.

GREAT MOVIE. SUSPENCFUL. DEAN CANE IS GREAT AS AFT AGENT PARTNERED WITH JENNIFER BEALS AS JULIE SANDERS WHO ACTUALL FIRES A RIFLE. STACEY KEACH IS GREAT IN HIS PART. A GREAT GOOD GUY/BAD GUY SHOW WITH THE GOOD GUY'S WINNING IN THE END. ALTHO THE GOVERNMENT DOES TAKE A FEW HITS. JM